Ganguly to be presented with golden bat

The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) will felicitate Sourav Ganguly on January 18 and present the former India captain with a golden bat which will have his cricketing records embossed on it.

The bat is expected to cost around Rs 25 lakh.

Ganguly, who retired from international cricket in November, will also be presented with a wicket and a bat made of silver besides the 1kg bat, CAB president Jagmohan Dalmiya told reporters today.

"The programme will also include an audio-visual presentation of about 15 minutes covering Ganguly's life from a child till his retirement as a cricketer," Dalmiya added.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) office-bearers, president and secretaries of all BCCI-affiliated units of the East Zone have been invited along with all former Bengal players, he added.

The one-hour programme, which will begin around 6 pm, will also see panel discussion on Ganguly. It will also have the captains under whom Ganguly had played for Bengal.

Bengal cricketers, past and present, Sambaran Banerjee, Pranab Roy, Ashok Malhotra, Utpal Chatterjee, Saba Karim, Deep Dasgupta, Devang Gandhi, Rohan Gavaskar and Laxmi ratan Shukla will be part of the panel, while Arun Lal will be the moderator.

Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee will be the guest of honour.